


Interaction Ritual

by drinkbloodlikewine



Series: Exclusion Theory [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Excessive Banter, M/M, Mind Games, Questionable Choices, Smoking, sociological theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Graham decides to take a night off from studying to attend a lecture at Johns Hopkins, and makes an unexpected connection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interaction Ritual

**Author's Note:**

> "No language exists that cannot be misused… Every interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text." - Carl Jung
> 
> The Hannibal-ACCA website has permission to post this piece <3

“Are you a student?”

The heavy accent fell on Will like a too-warm blanket and he turned towards it, fresh glass of wine in hand. He was surprised at how much taller the man appeared standing so close to him, and not at the front of the lecture hall.

“No,” he replied but quickly corrected himself. “Well, yes, but not here. At George Washington.” He took a sip to steady the sudden explosion of nerves like firecrackers in his veins - meeting people was always difficult - and forced himself to extend a hand. “It’s Mr. Lecter, right?”

“Doctor, now.” A pleasant correction as Hannibal shook Will’s hand. “And your name?”

“Will Graham.”

“Mr. Graham.” His name sounded so pleasant - elegant, even - as it rolled off the man’s tongue. Hannibal selected a grape from the buffet table and savored it slowly. “What brings you to this humble event, so far from the surrounding monuments of your alma mater?”

“Humble?” Will laughed tightly, looking out over the glass-enclosed foyer. A quartet dressed in black played soft chamber music through the reception, buffet tables lined thick with fine fare, and the academic and medical elite of Johns Hopkins mingled with students looking to climb their way into the ivory tower. “I think that we have a very different understanding of what that word means.”

In truth, Will felt woefully outclassed. He’d found a clean blue button-down and pulled a sweater on over it. His forest green scarf - a bit threadbare, maybe, but cozy - even matched the sweater, all under an ordinary brown suitcoat. But it all felt unspeakably plain next to the newly-minted doctor’s bespoke suit, a dark vortex of plaid tailored perfectly to his frame. It would have looked frightful on anyone who didn’t carry themselves with such authority. That was a mannerism that Will had never been able to affect, and any time he tried, the word “abrasive” seemed to come up frequently instead.

“Unusual for someone to willingly attend a presentation of doctoral theses without a personal interest in the matter, and not find themselves bored senseless by the experience.” Hannibal said, paused. “What is your personal interest?”

Will leaned back against one of the columns that held aloft the high ceiling of the foyer. “A few of us came, actually. Grad students.” Will motioned vaguely towards the crowd. He was unsurprised to find that he had settled on the outskirts. “They sent us an invitation. There’s overlap between your work and ours, so we thought it may be insightful.” He paused, lifting his glass with a vague, small smile. “It’s also free.”

“You speak in past tense,” Hannibal noted lightly. “Was it not insightful?”

A smile twitched at the corner of Will’s mouth before he could stop it. “It was.”

“But?”

Caught in a half-thought, bitten off to be polite, Will glanced sidelong at Hannibal. He answered briskly, trying to ignore the warm blush stretching up along his neck. “It was insightful, maybe in more ways than it was intended.”

The newly-minted doctor’s amusement was palpable. Will watched as he pushed a slip of blonde hair back out of his face - he seemed to be positively preening in anticipation of a challenge, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Do go on.”

Averting his eyes to the crowd again, Will lifted a hand in polite dismissal. “It was fine. You expressed your ideas articulately. Well-referenced. The audience seemed pleased.”

Hannibal picked a mote of dust from his collar. “I must admit that I noticed you in the front row - quite hard not to considering how constantly you move about.” Will resisted moving to accomodate the uneasy sensation that crept down his spine at the mention of his fidgeting. “I might even say you appeared quite uncomfortable at times,” Hannibal continued, benign smile benignly betrayed by the chiding tone in his voice. “What about my thesis made you feel that way? Or perhaps it was simply the chairs.”

A brow raised above the rim of his glasses. This wasn’t what he’d expected, but Will was glad that alcohol had smothered the familiar flinty spark of anxiety at the base of his skull that usually struck in these situations, similarly quieting the voice that told him he should just excuse himself. He nodded towards the small swarm of people a short distance away conspicuously waiting to speak with Hannibal, unable to resist responding the obvious prod.

“All of these people are waiting for you. They don’t know who I am, or why I’m here, or - more to the point - why you’re spending so long talking to me. If you walked away right now, they’d follow behind you hoping for even a moment of your time and they’d be grateful for the privilege to do so. I would still be standing here, waiting for my…” Friends? Companions? All too familiar. “Classmates.”

Bolstered by his own outspokeness, and the drink that ran warm through his veins, Will took another sip of bravery. “I would hope that for all your apparent intelligence - and it is apparent - the irony of someone who can command that kind of attention building their professional name on the necessity of social exclusion isn’t lost on you.”

Will was surprised to see a broad smile, showing bright white teeth that vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. Not the response he was expecting, nor did he expect Hannibal to rest a shoulder against the pillar beside Will, facing him.

“If I felt that my position in this particular social heirarchy would be imperiled by speaking with you - by this moment of dyadic cooperation, if I may - then why would I continue to engage with you? You seem to presume yourself as a target of exclusion.”

“Did you just quote your own thesis at me?” Will glanced at Hannibal from the corner of his glasses and huffed a quick laugh. He took a long drink, barely bothering to taste it at this point. “Why are you presuming I’m not?”

“We’ve only just met,” Hannibal responded, lifting his glass as though in toast, his eyes fixed on Will. “It would be unfair of me to assign stigma to you without first establishing some basis for that.”

Will shifted in his coat - maybe he did fidget too much - and shook his head, smiling dryly. “Then you may need to revisit your thesis, doctor, if it’s so difficult for you to read someone. Most language is unspoken. It’s what you perceive in those around you, not in what they actually say. But your own status gives you a position of privilege in ignoring these signals as you see fit. It’s like you’re,” he hesitated, grasped the right word, “above the heirarchy.”

Without moving, Hannibal felt closer than he had before, as though somehow taking up more space than he actually did. His voice was draped in the rich brocade of some unknown part of Eastern Europe and when he lowered it to a soft murmur Will wondered absently if he were more intoxicated than he’d previously considered.

“Perhaps I don’t feel that your exclusion is necessary to preserve the normative expectations of my particular social structure.” A string of words rendered suddenly meaningless as Will watched Hannibal sip his wine and with a brief flicker of his tongue, lick the last scarlet drop from his lips. “By redefining what we as individuals consider normative behavior, and what defines exclusionary behavior in others, we allow for more,” he paused, “deviation, than others may find comfortable.”

Will realized that he had been holding his breath as Hannibal spoke, and he forced it out in a curt laugh. “You’re moving goalposts.” A brief grin appeared and he hid it quickly. “You can only change the game so much before everyone else decides you’ve broken it - not everything is in your control.”

Will turned a shoulder against the column so their bodies faced towards each other, overly familiar for such a formal setting. “All I have to do is lean closer, like this.” Only Hannibal’s glass was between them now, and Will tilted his head to the side, exposing the flushed curve of his neck almost unintentionally. He could feel glances from those nearby and with a slight smile, murmured, “None of these people know me, so you’re the one they’re watching now. Reconsidering. Recategorizing. I’ve just broken your game.” Heady with booze and victory and the thrill of unfamiliar familiarity that crackled like static through his veins, he glanced up at Hannibal’s face.

His eyes were obscured by a lock of blonde hair fallen loose again and Will felt a prickle of alarm when he realized that in that moment, he couldn’t interpret the expression of the man looking down at him. There was nothing there that was familiar - not anger, not pride, not amusement. Something else, though, and like mistletoe a tightness crept through Will’s chest, sharp and smothering, until a smile played at the corner of Hannibal’s lips and the sensation passed as quickly as it appeared. Will pushed a nervous handthrough the messy curls of hair that had fallen into his face.

“Thank you, doctor,” Will said suddenly. He didn’t know if he was being pointed or genuine anymore but he’d lost the balance between just enough drink to steady himself and so much that he felt unsteady all over again. He knew he should go while he still had some sense left in him. “It’s, ah,” he stammered, “it’s certainly been enlightening.”

Hannibal shook his hand a little too long, a little too firm, and Will felt the pressure of curiosity surrounding him like an itchy old sweater he had worn his entire life. He tried to shrug it off but felt it scratching over every part of himself, prying, invasive, and deeply familiar. A lifetime of being a curiosity had made it easy to tell when he’d caught someone’s attention, although this time he wasn’t sure that it was entirely unwelcome.

“It certainly has been,” Hannibal replied, as Will withdrew his hand from the doctor’s firm grasp. He turned into the crowd to leave without looking back, and pulled his coat tighter as he emerged into the cold Baltimore night, glad to be where he could breathe.

 

A few partygoers gathered in small groups along the steps, illuminated in orange by the old sodium lamps overhead. Winter had lingered longer than usual and drifts of snow still glistened in the corners where the stairs met the small brick walls that ran alongside them. The chill that pressed inside his lungs felt so different than the bayou heat Will had always known - a suffocating warmth like the inside of an oven.

The extra glasses of wine made the stairs move unevenly beneath his feet, and he sat on the low wall beside them to wait. Will hadn’t meant to leave without his classmates, but the idea of going back in to find them was fairly insurmountable after the show he’d just put on. He was so deep in the throes of quietly berating himself that he didn’t immediately notice the familiar shape descending the stairs towards him a short while later.

Will restrained a shiver as he watched Hannibal approach. The lazy grace of his stride betrayed a peculiar strength, like something was pulling at his seams of himself rather than the seams of his clothing. That itchy curiosity prickled up Will’s back again as Hannibal’s eyes caught in the light, brief shining pinpoints that shone almost red as he crossed beneath the amber lamps. Will turned his gaze away from the arch of Hannibal’s back as he leaned against the wall beside him.

No more wine ever, Will told himself, and he sighed a puff of breath into the air. “Look,” he started, “your paper was great and I shouldn’t have -“

“I didn’t come out here for an apology,” Hannibal interjected. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. To the contrary, I found our conversation deeply engaging.”

He removed a cigarette case from his pocket in offering. Of course he carries a cigarette case, Will thought ruefully. He started to reach for one but Hannibal removed two himself instead, and pressed both between his lips. It was almost unfair, the way he draped his fingers all across the Cupid’s bow of his mouth and Will stared as Hannibal lit both cigarettes with a wooden match. He turned the smoke languidly over his tongue before releasing it to the sky. Will accepted the cigarette that was lit for him and murmured a passable thanks.

A smattering of applause from the reception drew both their attention, and the few guests braving the chill began to hurry back up the stairs. The brand of cigarette was unfamiliar to Will, but tasted of autumn leaves and cocoa and the wine no doubt still fresh on Hannibal’s lips.

“You’re going to miss all the acclaim.”

“To be honest,” Hannibal replied, “our conversation has been the most rewarding part of the evening thus far.”

Will felt heat bloom up his neck from beneath his scarf and took another drag before tapping the cigarette. Ashes mingled with snow. “So you do think that you’re above all of this - the social climbing and the stratifying.”

“Of course,” Hannibal snorted lightly. “Don’t you?”

Will hadn’t considered it but here they were, smoking alone in the cold outside of a party that cost more than Will would earn in years. “I’d consider myself pretty beneath all of this, actually.” His own honesty surprised him and he shrugged it off uncomfortably. “My ‘social capital’ is - let’s say it’s a little lacking.”

“Perhaps you simply need to find the right person to appreciate the particular social capital that you can offer, Mr. Graham.”

He couldn’t stand the thought of correcting him, as he would anyone else. The strange faith in his worth was something Will had never experienced - let alone from a stranger - and he felt so embarassed by it that he didn’t even ask to be called his first name as he usually preferred. Indeed, somewhere inside he knew he wanted to hear his name said like that again and again, the warm carress of Hannibal’s accent setting off little fireworks all up his spine and into his hair.

“You never told me your field of interest,” Hannibal mused. “To what - besides crashing parties - do you devote your energies?”

“Ah, forensics. Forensic profiling, specifically. Special investigator I hope, if I can get through the next year.” Hannibal took a slow drag, embers illuminating in red the sharp curves of his cheeks and the faint hint of a smile. “I was a detective,” Will continued. “Just briefly. I thought that this might suit me better.”

An explanation hung unspoken and Hannibal let it pass. “So we are remarkably similar then. We commit our lives fully to understanding the other - those that society would exclude without fully grasping the depth of their true nature.”

Will snorted something like a laugh, humorless. “The kind of other that I have to understand needs to be excluded. I’m just the unlucky person who doesn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Sometimes their depths can go too deep,” Hannibal agreed. A familiar tension wound its way through Will’s limbs and he avoided the prying gaze he felt when Hannibal pressed the cigarette between his lips and pushed himself up onto the wall. He was sitting precariously close and Will could just feel Hannibal’s fingers next to his thigh on the hard brick. They were so close that he couldn’t be sure if they were actually touching or just so close that it didn’t matter and he had to make himself remember breathe again.

“When you go too deep, William,” he murmured, smoke and heat and cashmere trailing from his mouth, “do you ever have trouble reaching the surface again?”

Hannibal’s voice hit like water from a quarry dive swallowing Will whole and he drew a sharp breath as he slid past the surface. His cigarette hissed out in the snow and he grasped Hannibal’s face instead, fingers sliding along his hard jaw to draw him in. Their lips were parted as they touched, brushing softly over the other before closing firmly. He tasted like he sounded, like fire consuming too-green branches, like sweet grapes and dry leaves. Will let his tongue slide deeper and Hannibal’s lips parted to allowed it with a sound of surprise so faint that Will wasn’t sure he hadn’t just imagined it.

A strong hand pushed back through the mess of Will’s curls and wrapped in them, tugging his head back gently. Slender fingers loosened the scarf around his neck and let it fall aside and his breath hitched when Hannibal’s lips broke away and pressed instead against the curve of his throat. Will arched his back to press into the warmth and he knew he would fall, off the wall and through the stairs and just tumble forever. Sparks like lightning behind his eyes as he felt bruises blooming beneath Hannibal’s mouth, sucking firmly on his soft skin. He wrapped his hands in the soft wool collar of Hannibal’s overcoat to keep him close so that if he went down, they’d both go down together.

When Hannibal withdrew his bruising kiss Will watched from close as he took another drag from his cigarette, still holding it in his free hand as though nothing had suddenly changed in every way. The way his mouth curved around it, the little breath he took to pull the smoke into his lungs - Will felt his cheeks flush hot, lips parting, desperate to be that grey fog that pooled inside his mouth and escaped in a measured trickle.

He loosed his grip on the coat to trace the line of Hannibal’s lips with his fingers, forehead pressed to his temple. The smile beneath his touch felt fever-hot and Will leaned in to steal another kiss, their lips sealing fast as he let his fingers drift lower. The fitted plaid felt smooth against his fingers as he spread them over Hannibal’s thigh and he grinned at the reaction - a twitch of muscle, a sharp breath. He’d rattled him a little and Will’s heart crashed against his ribcage at the thought of rattling him more and his tongue slid hard against Hannibal’s and the sound of doors opening from the top of the stairs startled him so violently that he actually did fall backwards, caught only by Hannibal’s alarmingly strong grasp.

Will looked at Hannibal’s hand on his wrist, pulling him upright, and felt such a rush of blood that he was dizzy. He jerked his hand away as he slid off the wall, nearly stumbling face-first into the steps. Hannibal sat perfectly still, perched as though for a portrait, a curious look on his face as he finally stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette.

“Are we going?” he asked easily, his tone positively chipper. For a moment, Will wanted nothing more than to shove him back off the wall but instead he just clenched his fists.

“I’m going. Yes. I’m going. I’ve clearly had too much to drink -“

“- and you’ve felt things you weren’t ready to feel. Uncomfortable truths you may have felt before, but didn’t have the avenues to express.”

“Stop,” snapped Will before he could continue, pushing his glasses back into place. “Stop. You’re not my doctor. You’re barely even a doctor at all. I don’t know why you came out here.”

A crooked smile. “For the same reason you waited.”

“I wasn’t waiting for you,” hissed Will, glancing at the impending guests making their way down the stairs.

“Are you quite certain?” Hannibal slid a hand back through his hair, tousled with an artful decadence that made Will’s stomach tie in knots.

“Goodnight, Dr. Lecter,” Will shot over his shoulder as he made himself turn away. He heard his classmates call to him but he kept walking as they hurried to catch up. Don’t stop. Don’t look back.


End file.
